An inquiry into the continued existence of challenges faced by Musicians of Popular Music in Tanzania

This study investigated rationale for the recurrence of challenges faced by musicians of popular music in Tanzania. The challenges included ‗artistic ‘and ‗economic ‘ones. ‗Artistic‘ challenges were those encounters which interfered with musicians‘ artistic creativity and ‗economic‘ challenges were those which interfered with musicians‘ career economic objectives. Data were gathered in Arusha, Dar es Salaam, Mwanza and Zanzibar Island, through three research methods: group discussions, interviews, and observations, and then analysed qualitatively. The study used two concepts: ‗dependability of the young ‘and ‗standardization of popular music‘, to examine the challenges. All concepts argue that, musicians ‘are ‗weak ‘in making decisions and in creating their music, thus, fail to achieve and protect their artistic and economic interests. The study found out that recurrence of the challenges was due to their existed underlying causes and weaknesses in the attempts to overcome them. The causes were explored by using two concepts: ‗the power of relationships among music industry personnel’ and ‗social relations in life‘. The attempts were evaluated by using two concepts, namely ‗tactics of the weak’ and ‗industry authority‘s dominance‘. The study‘s contribution was exploration of causes and evaluation of attempts to overcome the challenges. It recommends that to deal with the recurrence of the challenges effectively, it was necessary to understand the challenges thoroughly and improve the weaknesses of the attempts to overcome them.